Every
once in a while you're lucky enough to read something that changes the way you
look at politics and the world in general. That is how I felt after finished
The Dictator's Handbook. Written by political scientists the book is written
for a general audience and provides clear examples and demonstrates the central
thesis. De Mesquita and Smith seek to uncover the true incentives behind the
actions of leaders. Their thesis has given them new insight and understanding
of how leaders and governments behave.
The
title of the book is a bit misleading. It is not about how to become a
dictator, or something like that. The book is focused more on how do leaders
gain power and hold power successfully. They argue that leaders in democratic
countries, ruthless dictatorships, corporations or small towns are all
operating under the same basic principles.
Leaders
wish to obtain and maintain power. In any structure where a leader is selected,
the authors write, there are the interchangeables, the influentials, and the
essentials. The names for these three categories is perhaps the worst part of
the book from my point of view. The interchangeables, or nominal selectorate, are
the entire population that can choose the leaders. The influentials are the
'real' selectorate, or the group who actually chooses the leader. The essesntials
are the group of the influentials who make up the winning coalition.
I
know that was a lot to parse, so I'll use an example from Canada. In Canada
every adult citizen has the right to vote. That is the interchangeables. However,
we know for a fact that a lot of the population does not fall into the
category. For example, a significant population of the country does not vote,
so you lose about 30-40% right there. From there the leader cobbles together a
coalition to win, those become the essentials. This coalition are the voters
who elect Members of Parliament for the winning party. In the end only about
15-25% of the Canadian voting population has a role in selecting the Prime
Minister. The PM then has the sole duty of keeping that coalition happy in
order to maintain power.
America
provides an easy example for the presidency. The electoral college is the true
real selectorate for the president. He/she must the 270 electoral votes to
assure victory. However, in most recent elections some states are absolutely
guaranteed in their leanings and the outcome assured. As a result candidates
for president can focus on the essentials in a handful of states. In an
autocratic regime the selectorate may be the single legal party, like the
Communist Party of China, or the support among the military and its key
officers.
Once
in power leaders have to find a way to reward their supporters to ensure their
continued loyalty. Leaders who fail to do so risk encouraging new coalitions
forming that will turf them from office. For this control of resources and
redistribution is important. The authors have found direct correlation between
the size of the coalitions required and the disparity of rewards. In a democracy
benefits have to be distributed widely in the form of social programs or tax
cuts, as an example. In a dictatorship, or small coalition country, leaders can
steal - literally - from the population to reward their backers. This is how
you get situations where some small, select minority loyal to the leader, such
as his home tribe, becomes enormously enriched. The leader wins their absolute
loyalty.
The
authors investigate how this lens can interpret things like corruption,
taxation and foreign aid. The come to an interesting conclusions and
extrapolation, backed by case studies. Countries that have a plentiful
resource, like oil, are at greater risk for shrinking the coalition of support.
Taxes tend to be higher because regimes in small coalition countries can afford
to squeeze their populations more. Foreign aid props up dictators and gives
them and their supporters tools to enrich themselves. It's sort of stunning.
When developing countries are forced to rely upon their populations to be
productive they invest in them and the coalition grows.
The
book is deeply cynical, one could argue, but there is an undeniable logic to
it. We see these factors play out all the time in democracies as well as
dictatorships. The actions of leaders can be explained by these central
motivations. The books is well-written as well as dryly humourous. It was a
deeply pleasurable read and has definitely given me a lot to think about, and
explains why bad behaviour can often be good politics.
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